Download  my CV here.

Research  Description

My recent research has explored the relationship between health, medicine, and marginalized bodies. I'm still pursuing several projects in this area, but going forward, I will be focusing more on my eventual dissertation topic, technologies of size policing and body regulation in children. So far, I'm planning to look at the Let's Move! campaign, weight loss camps, bariatric surgery, and weight loss drugs. Children are the target of so many weight loss interventions these days, but there is little discussion of the histories behind these interventions and how they've shaped what we're currently experiencing. My goal is to use the insights from my research to make a strong case for how and why these interventions should be disrupted.

Currently

I recently completed my qualifying exam for the Communication department, which involved writing two papers on the different academic topics and approaches I specialize in. 

• Paper 1: A history of fat as a "floating signifier" from the late 1700s to the early 1900s. This paper explores how "fat" as a label was attached to different bodies to create hierarchies of superior and inferior people, rather than a category based on body size or weight. 
• Paper 2: A genealogy of two figures of "the child" - the innocent child and the developing child - in United States history. This paper explores the category of childhood and how these two constructs of the child included some young people and excluded others along raced, gender, and classed lines.